Doragon boru Z: Chikyû marugoto chôkessen

This is another good "Dragonball Z" movie, but I don't think it's one of the best. I think it's mostly because of the villain. He looks just like Goku and I kind of think that was a bit too obvious to represent as an evil counterpart to him. He doesn't have much depth and I felt like they could have done more with him. Hey, we get an environmental message in the series! It's kind of weird to see the Dragon Balls being used for something like that. Besides this, it's still quite watchable.

This introduces Gohan's pet dragon, Icarus. Alright, I'm not sure if he appears in the later movies, but it's interesting to meet this character. I think it's a good idea to have a main character with a pet. There really is something you could do with that and it works here. At first, I thought they wouldn't go all the way and make Gohan the great ape, but they did! The plot is also pretty cool. I like the idea of a giant tree, especially with all the details with the roots. It's a pretty original idea. Turles (I thought his name was pronounced "Turuls" and not "Tur-less") has some colorful henchmen too. ***

A Saiyan named Taurus has invaded Earth in order to plant a tree that will both destroy the planet and give Taurus strength a hundred-fold. Goku and the Z fighters aren't going to let this happen and duke it out with Taurus's group for the sake of the Earth.

This movie has more alternate storytelling than the previous movie did. As the movie went, it has little connection to the anime series than the whole meeting Icarus part in the movie, who only appears during the Garlic Jr. Saga.

That and the introduction of Taurus who only appeared in this movie and was never mentioned during the first 3 seasons of the anime. As he and his minions wear the same uniform for Frieza, but they never mentioned their leader even though it's obvious who they work for.

So in short, the Dragon Ball fans will enjoy this title for an alternate storyline movie.

While whatever little happens in this movie is top notch and nothing less than spectacular, it only lasts for 1 hour and ends up less than satisfying especially after the screwed up ending. The fight scenes are the best of any DBZ episode and the special effects are superb. However, there's really not much story and too much time is wasted on the usual 'staring' present in DBZ. To illustrate how good the few scenes and action are, take note that the majority of the scenes in the DBZ series title song are from this movie. The animation standard is much better than the average DBZ episode. A major shortcoming is that Turles and his team spend too little time fighting. They should have had much longer fight scenes when it came to his team and they were too easily defeated. However, I prefer this to the Brolly movie any day. There is very little in this movie but that little is top notch stuff. Definitely a must see. Is it a must purchase? I really can't say the same.

If you like the series this is one of the more enjoyable movies I have seen in the series (Dead Zone and the World's Strongest are the only other two I have seen). If you are a DBZ fan one thing to keep in mind is that this does not conincide with the series. It is best to think of them as different entities (I do wish they could get the same people to do the dubbing though). This one is especially good because you actually see some of the other characters involved in the fight for the earth. Yamacha and Tien and Choutzou all actually take part in the action. In the series they rarely do anything after the Saiyan Saga (the one where Vegeta is introduced). Aside from the fact Vegeta is not in this it is very good. Goku fights a Saiyan named Turlos who is threating the earth. There are some very good battles and you get to see Goku use the Kao Ken technique and the spirit bomb. A very good ending fight as well make this movie very entertaining.

Most DBZ fans think that the earlier DBZ movies suck because the heroes aren't as strong as they are in the more recent sagas of the series, but I totally disagree. I'm pretty sure that this is one of the best DBZ movies ever made.

The FUNimation version (the old uncensored one) is surprisingly well handled. Well, most of the voices are very annoying, but I'm glad that they kept the original music score and were allowed to put the word "hell" in the script. The script is fairly well written and they didn't add as much annoying sound effects as they did in the dubbed versions of the previous movies.

I don't have many complaints about the dub, although some of those Canadian voice actors have unbelievably annoying voices! Anyway, on to the plot - magnificent! Simply the one of the best non-manga adaptation DBZ plots ever. There are plot holes and differences in some of the concepts in this movie and those of the series, but that's just so that the story could be more entertaining. Really good story!

I sincerely recommend this movie, as well as the previous two, their dubbed versions especially. Of course, many of the voices in them are very annoying and there are some really annoying sound effects too, but it's still more enjoyable to listen to them than to read subtitles throughout the entire movie.